Defense lawyer opposes gag order in Gerace sex-trafficking case

Steven M. Cohen, the lawyer for Peter Gerace Jr., owner of Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club in Cheektowaga, said in a new court filing that “the government’s campaign to try this case through the media has been far more extensive, profound, excoriating, defamatory and effective than anything the Gerace defense team or I personally have done.”

Prosecutors three weeks ago requested a gag order – four months ahead of Gerace’s scheduled trial – because they say Cohen keeps commenting to the local media “in order to denigrate witnesses, potentially pollute the jury pool, and to otherwise try this case through the media.”

The prosecutors also complained that Cohen has improperly attacked the motives and reputation of Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi, who’s among the prosecution team that submitted the request for a gag order.

Cohen contended in his court filing Friday, based on his consultant’s calculation, that 97% of the newspaper coverage of the case “besmirches, condemns and slams Mr. Gerace.”

“It appears that the government’s position is not that the media should not be used as a tool in this case, but rather that it should only be a tool used by the government to disparage Mr. Gerace, or to aggrandize Mr. Tripi,” Cohen said.

Federal authorities have accused Gerace of bribing Joseph Bongiovanni, at the time a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, and conspiring to engage in drug trafficking and human trafficking at Pharaoh’s. Prosecutors have charged the now-retired Bongiovanni with accepting $250,000 in bribes from drug dealers whom he thought were associated with Italian organized crime and shielding them from arrest, as well as providing them with information about investigations and cooperating sources. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Cohen has previously said prosecutors have acted improperly by bringing mob allegations into their case.

Some two dozen of 30 stories in The Buffalo News over the past two years on the Gerace case cited prosecution references to “Italian Organized Crime” or “Buffalo Mob” or to Gerace as a defendant in an “organized crime case,” according to Cohen’s filing.

Cohen cited Gerace’s arrest in March 2021 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as an example of what he called the government’s manipulation of the media.

Gerace, of Clarence, was arrested while he was on vacation and charged with paying bribes to Bongiovanni, his childhood friend, and he was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale.

The arrests stemmed from a federal investigation into the Buffalo “Mafia” and “Italian Organized Crime,” according to federal documents.

Gerace is the nephew of Joseph A. Todaro, whom federal agents and Tripi have identified in court or reports as the head of the Buffalo Mafia.

The investigation of this case had been going on for years before Gerace was ever indicted, Cohen said, and the government knew Gerace to be an acquaintance of Bongiovanni well before Bongiovanni’s 2019 indictment.

The government’s choice to wait until Gerace “took a rare vacation to Florida was, I am convinced, calculated to make a massive media splash derogatory to Mr. Gerace,” Cohen said.

“It is undisputed that at the time of the arrest, Peter Gerace had a home in Erie County where he slept every night, a business in Cheektowaga where he worked every day, and a son who resided with him who he took to school and extra-curricular activities every day,” Cohen said. “There is not a shred of evidence that even suggests that Mr. Gerace needed to be arrested in Florida, nor that he has ever evaded legal authorities.

“The government’s decision to wait until he took a trip to Florida was to orchestrate a very public, very embarrassing arrest where the media was present, and Mr. Gerace was forced to be detained in Florida and be subjected to profound negative media attention facilitated by Mr. Tripi’s office, which provided press materials which resulted in the highly inflammatory and prejudicial articles.

“I don’t see Mr. Tripi objecting to any of that coverage,” Cohen said.

Cohen said his firm hired Steven G. Reszka to analyze media coverage of the case. Reszka, in a court filing, said he reviewed 32 newspaper stories, all but two published in The Buffalo News, and 27 television news reports since March 2021. His report did not describe his methodology for determining what constituted favorable coverage for the prosecution or defense. Reszka called “favorable” a “subjective standard for which I am utilizing my expertise when categorizing language as favoring one side or another.”

Reszka said he has more than 35 years of experience in public relations, media relations, crisis communications and event management as well as owning and operating media-related consulting companies. He said he has some 45 years of radio and television experience, including 21 years in radio station ownership. He said he has been on the Buffalo Broadcasters Association board for about 25 years.

Reszka called media reports regarding this case “one-sided and overwhelmingly beneficial to the government and highly prejudicial to the defendants.”

“During the course of my career, and specifically in this case, I have observed Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi, who appears quite adept and likely well-coached in dealing with the media,” Reszka wrote in a court filing. “Mr. Tripi consistently and deliberately uses inflammatory language in court documents and in the courtroom describing the defendant, knowing that the news media will pick up on this language and quote him in their stories.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined comment Monday.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo has set Tuesday as a deadline for the prosecution to respond in court to Cohen’s filing.